1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to database management systems, and, more particularly, to an automated interactive visual mapping utility and method for validation and storage of Extensible Markup Language (XML) data within computer-based database management systems.
2. Description of Related Art
The increasing popularity of electronic commerce has prompted many companies to turn to application servers to deploy and manage their applications effectively. Quite commonly, these application servers are configured to interface with a database management system (DBMS) for storage and retrieval of data. This often means that new applications must work with distributed data environments. As a result, application developers frequently find that they have little or no control over which DBMS product is to be used to support their applications or how the database is to be designed. In many cases, developers find out that data critical to their application is spread across multiple DBMSes developed by different software vendors.
A repository, such as a relational database, provides an environment to securely store and share XML documents and XML schemas. Authorized users of a repository have secure access to important XML documents and XML schemas at any time and from anywhere. By using a repository system, that can contain one or more relational database systems, users can locate and retrieve the latest version of XML documents and XML schema documents.
The standard approach for storing XML documents in a relational database has been through customized specific third-party software, such as programs, database command line arguments or code-based applications. A software program reads an XML document and appropriate XML schema(s), performs proper validation of the XML document contents and then stores the validated XML document in one or more database tables. While this software program facilitates the data validation process, someone has to develop its code. Presently, there is no single generic intuitive solution through which all or some portions of XML documents can be validated quickly, against one ore more XML schemas, during updates or inserts of XML data into target destinations, such as columns of database tables.
Another problem occurs when a repository engine, such as a database management system, tries to validate a large number of XML documents against multiple XML schemas. The XML data validation is usually performed against one or more XML schemas, or namespaces that are defined in XML schemas, and can be applied on entire or some portions (fragments) of an XML document. When validation errors occur during inserts or updates of target destinations there may be hundreds of errors and it can take a user a long time to identify and correct these errors. Furthermore, a user has to know how to map the XML document's fragments to their target destinations and appropriate XML schemas and write the validation code to accomplish the validation.
Therefore, there is a need to provide a method and a system that can be used in an easy, efficient and intuitive way for validation of XML data during updates or inserts into a target destination, where the target destination of the validated XML data may be one or more XML columns residing in one or more databases of a heterogeneous Relational DataBase Management System (RDBMS) environment.